Excerpt from To the Mountains of the Moon: Being an Account of the Modern Aspect of Central Africa and of Some Little Known Regions Traversed by the Tanganyika Expedition, in 1899 and 1900 But besides this, the serious pursuit of whelks led me of necessity over some areas in the centre of the Continent which had never been visited before, and I had therefore, when I returned, a mass of geographical and descriptive material which had nothing to do directly with the Tanganyika problem, but which was by no means without interest in itself and lastly, there are certain results of the scientific investigations which are without technicality, and yet are at the same time of general interest, because, as I have explained in the first chapter, they completely change our views respecting the past history of this portion of the earth. On this account I. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII. "A ship was lying on the sunny main, Its sails were flagging in the breathless noon, Its shadow lay beyond."--Shelley. From the recollections of my former journey which caused the digressions of the last chapter, I returned much against my will to the question of the Good News, that small, dilapidated, unsavoury craft round which Mr. Ewing, the managing director of the African Lakes Corporation, had told me in London that the commerce and development of the Tanganyika region were shortly going to centre. This was, of course, before I had arranged to charter the craft, and all the way up 1 had felt as if the African Lakes Corporation, Limited, was conferring upon the expedition a sort of generous gift, in the interests of pure science, in allowing me to charter this boat at any price; for she was the only steamer on Tanganyika--that is, in a district of such momentous, such supreme importance as Northern Rhodesia. Fortunately, the powers that be have bestowed on man a saving sense of the humour of things, and through this blessing one can laugh in places, even in the inside of that steamer, and under circumstances where the practical or human part of our being would infallibly resort to dynamite. The condition of the boat was beyond all description, and it was notorious throughout the land; even the rough hardihood of a Scotch boiler maker revolted when I suggested on the verandah of the new mission at Kinyamkolo, that my object in coming was to get him to renovate her cockroachy and cow-dung-bespattered inside. It was one thing to build a section boat for the Congo Free State on the sweltering shores of Tanganyika; it was another to attempt to do anything with the Augean stable of the Good News. I pointed out to him, ...